So I find myself in the all to familiar situation of having to recall events that have long since passed, while relying on photos and a memory hazed by the copious amounts of alcohol that have passed my lips in the past few months. However, in this particular circumstance I am writing this update from somewhere over the Denmark Straight of Atlantic Ocean at 10,058m in the air, travelling at 929 kph and it’s a chilly -62 degrees centigrade outside. No, I haven’t developed the Supermanesque ability of flight; I am in fact onboard United Airlines Flight 931 to Los Angeles.
Before I go into my past few months, I feel it my civic duty to advise you all to stay the hell away from United Airlines. They charge $US5 for alcoholic beverages, there are no movies on demand and the plane is unsurprisingly full of stupid and fat Americans and crying babies. Also, I'm sitting next to a couple that look like they have just walked out of the American Gothic painting and put on clothes from the late 1960's...
Next time I fly home, I’m paying extra to take a Singapore/Malaysian/Qantas/anyone else airlines flight
Anywho, I think I left ya’ll after Paris, about to tackle Rotterdam and Edinburgh.
The only reason I went to Rotterdam was to watch Liverpool play in a pre-season friendly tournament against Feyenoord, and the game was certainly the highlight of the trip. Having had some experience of the Netherlands through my previous trip to Amsterdam, I must say that Rotterdam let it’s much more famous cousin down miserably. I had been pre-warned that Rotterdam was not exactly an exciting place to be and I must say Kaz & Caitlin were right. Even though there were a fair few travelling supporters for the tournament (FC Porto and Shenghua Sharks were playing as well), there was no buzz about the place and the whole town seemed kinda dead.
My mate Daz and I did manage to find a decent place to grab a meal though and it must be said that there were a few good sorts in the restaurant…
I can't believe I ate the whole thing
The Coopers hat on tour
The lads before the game 
I'm guessing it's a cigar lounge...It’s hard to explain, but there was just none of the vibrancy that I have experienced in many of the other European cities I have visited. We went for a wander to the bar district which reminded me of a really quiet version of home and I was vaguely surprised I didn’t see any tumbleweeds go rolling by.
From what I understand Rotterdam got relatively flattened during the war and I guess in their haste to rebuild it, they didn’t really bother building anything nice.
Edinburgh on the other hand had it all going on. To be fair, we went during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which is almost as big and good as the RADelaide Fringe Festival, so I guess that helped, but I can certainly see that even without the Fringe Edinburgh is a beautiful town. Really, a town that has a big castle looking down on it is always going to be cool.
We managed to squeeze in a whole lot of comedy shows, saw a Japanese break dancing crew and saw the Soweto Gospel Choir. It was freakin AMAZING! Next year, I’m going to book a few days off and do more than just a weekend and maybe book far enough in advance that I don’t end up staying in the worst hostel in the town…
Evening over Edinburgh 
The castle overlooking the town
More cool stuff in Edinburgh
So Edinburgh ended my epic three trips in three weekends and after having done it once, I don’t think I’ll ever be doing that much travel in such a short time frame ever again.
Due to the extremely unhealthy state of my bank balance following my travels, I chose to spend most of September in and around London. Highlights included visiting Bournemouth beach (I actually managed to get sunburnt), Brighton beach to go Orbing, having Slats and Amber visit – we had an impromptu house party and having Zuzana and Luke visit – we went to the Notting Hill Carnival.
Everybody's going surfing 
Rentable huts just by the beachfront
Notting Hill Carnival
Greg, Zuzana, Luke & me
Amber, Slats and me
Climb in, the water's fine
Me & Marie - drenched but happy!If you’ve never been Orbing before, I highly recommend it. If you have no idea what Orbing is, it’s also known as Zorbing in Oz/NZ and is basically an activity in which you climb into a great big ball and get rolled down a hill. I did it 3x, once a dry run and twice on a wet run. The wet run is SOOOO much fun it should be illegal - it's basically as close to experiencing the inside of a washing machine as you can get
September was a month tinged with sadness as we farewelled one of our drinking team – Shaun, who had to go home due to visa issues, so we got rollickingly drunk for his whole last weekend.
Shaun's drinking injuryThe last weekend of September signals that start of the confusingly labelled Oktoberfest, so a crack team of drinkers was assembled and we shot off to Munich for another weekend of cultural immersion.
We spent Friday immersing ourselves in the grand old tradition of the German beer hall – sinking many a stein in the Paulaner hall near Karlsplatz, but aware there was a long weekend of drinking ahead of us, we didn’t get too crazy and were tucked safely in bed in a random B&B in the middle of deep suburban Munich before midnight.
Saturday morning saw us wake up early to get to the opening of the festival and even though we were at the Wiesn (German for field) by 10am, we were unable to get into a tent and had to settle for a table on the outskirts of the Paulaner tent. In hindsight, that was actually kind of cool because the weather was magnificent, with the sun shining brightly and the temperature in the high 20’s. We were fortunate to snag a table on the edge of the beer wenches walkways and with some fairly generous tipping, we never had to wait all that long to get beers when we needed them. Perhaps the only thing disappointing about the day was the fact that our assigned beer wench was actually a Ginger haired dude. However, he was cool and brought us beer and pork knuckles, so we forgave his lack of breasts. I tell you what though, some of those girls are amazing, they may be only 5 foot 2 with arms smaller than Liam Golding’s but they can still carry 6 steins in each hand with a few more seemingly held up by their boobs, seriously – I saw a girl carrying 15 1L steins – as I said, AMAZING! Following a long afternoon of drinking (they don’t serve beers until midday on the opening day) we decided that the rollercoasters and other amusement rides required our attention – we even managed not to throw up.
Sunday saw me at a friend of a friend’s place drinking beer and doing shots of proper German Schnapps at 9am after a skimpy “breakfast” pretzel. Needless to say, more drinking was done, this time in the Hacker tent, with dancing on the tables to the dulcet tunes of a German Oompah band playing AC/DC’s TNT, DJ Otzi’s Oooooh baby, I wanna know if you’ll be my girl, the Angel’s Am I ever going to see your face again – no way, get fucked, fuck off, Living Next door to Alice – Alice, who the fuck is Alice? And some traditional German tunes, most of which I was somewhat reliably informed had to do with sex.
I even managed to learn some German – “Du bist sehr shön” which means “you are very beautiful” and some other phrases which are perhaps inappropriate to post, buy me a beer and I’ll tell you later ;?p
More amusement rides in the evening and in true Schutzenfest style, we went target shooting. I must say that I do find the German tradition of getting drunk and shooting guns somewhat worrying, but hey, who am I to judge?
Welcome to Oktoberfest
Just working the guns....
Early opening morning
Inside the Paulaner tent
Outside the Paulaner tent
Our very own beer "wench"
Me & my pork knuckle 
Me & some locals
Me & gingerbread - I'm lead to believe it says "Hello from Oktobefest 2007"
Is this the best beard ever?Monday was slightly more sombre as we decided to go to Dachau concentration camp. Unfortunately, the museum was closed so we had to make do with the view from the outside, which was perhaps, less educational, but moving nonetheless.
Since Oktoberfest there was the AFL Grand Final, which we woke up at quarter past three in the morning for – and I guess I should give respect where it’s due – well played Geelong, the biggest win in Grand Final history is indeed an impressive effort and whilst not a Port supporter (GO THE CROWS!), I was disappointed in their performance. As a result, we largely ignored large portions of the game and focused our attentions of the steady supply of jugs of snakebites that we kept purchasing. Later that evening, I got to experience the institution that is Fabric nightclub and it certainly lived up to its hype.
Me & Melli at Fabric
Me, Huffy & jug of snakebite
The drinking teamSomewhere in between the drinking, I managed to figure out that I was getting very close to breaching my Working Holiday visa, which would have had unfortunate repercussions and so I have taken an extended leave without pay from work to travel back to Oz whilst my Highly Skilled Migrant Permit (apparently I am considered highly skilled in certain circles) is sorted out so that I can go back and work in the UK legally.
So that’s it, and bloody hell, it’s been a big few months, demonstrated by just how much crap I’ve just written. If you’ve managed to make it through to the end though, and can prove to me that you read all of that, I will buy you a beer, or even two if you’re lucky!
Looking forward to seeing you all real soon.
PK
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